Your Ramadan Campaign Planning Guide

Ramadan is key for most Muslim charities. On average 50% of their annual donations come in over this period.

But each year it’s getting busier and more competitive. So, you need to work harder to get everything in place earlier.

We’ve helped to deliver hundreds of Ramadan campaigns for Muslim charities of all sizes over the last decade and more. So, when it comes to understanding behaviour flows, giving patterns and costs vs conversions across thousands of live campaigns, the level of expertise we’ve built up over this time is genuinely second to none.

It’s not possible to share everything we know in a short article. But here we’ve collated some key steps you can take for the success of your campaign in the run-up to Ramadan. By putting in the work now, you give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your most successful Ramadan campaign ever, Insha’Allah.

Download your free Ramadan 2024 planning guide

Review your objectives

This will help you to work out what to focus on; to create the relevant landing pages and to make sure that the asks (donation handles) are in line with what people like to give to you.

Start by reviewing any previous campaigns you ran. Ask yourself, what worked and what didn’t. Analyse your financials and take a date range of 10 days before through to 10 days after last Ramadan. Then look at your total donations.

What did people give to? Identify the top 5 most popular giving types. What was the average value for each? In general, average giving amounts are higher in Ramadan than for the rest of the year. Bear in mind that in general, people like to give one-off amounts rather than set up DD’s.

Agree your key themes and messaging

Decide on the projects you want to lead with. Here are some ideas based on giving trends at this time of year:

• Zakat – Most people give their Zakat in Ramadan. The overall Zakat split is usually around 70% for charities.
• Food & Water – In the month of fasting, food and water are popular choices for charity.
• Orphan sponsorship

 

In addition to the above, if you are aiming to raise funds for projects like mosque builds or refurbishments, then fundraising dinners can play an important role. Read our article on first steps to fundraising here to get some useful ideas.

Identify your channels

Channels are the ways/platforms over which you’ll be engaging with your supporters. These can include:
 

• Digital advertising
• Email campaigns
• Social media
• Volunteer channels (mosque and community collections, local events, iftars etc.)

 
Once you’ve decided this, you’ll want to start creating your assets i.e., your content. Essentially, you’ll want to:

• Consider building a Zakat Calculator donors can use if you don’t already have one.
• Create videos – these are key!
• Create case studies which can be shared over email and social media as well as on your landing pages.

 
Once all of this is ready and uploaded, do take the time to test everything before you go live!

Put your best foot forward

In the lead-up to Ramadan, share feedback and send out reports. What did you do last year, how did donors support you? What are the priorities for this year?

People appreciate value adds. So, one month before is a good time to touch base with your supporters about the impact of your work and inspire them to get into Ramadan mode. This could involve sharing tips and suggestions, and Islamic content that will help people get the most out of the blessed month.

Take care with digital budgets

The last 3rd of the month of Ramadan is when most of your money will come in. So, you’ll want to plan your budgets accordingly. That said, this is an extremely complex area and requires specialist support. So do take care!

It’s too easy to find yourself competing with bigger charities with bigger budgets. Our advice is always: to stay in your lane and find ways to target people without getting into bidding wars that you can’t win.

Also, bear in mind that there are always lots of new campaign types and it’s easy to fall foul of regulations related to charities. You need to be careful not to cross the line between asking for donations and being seen as a religious or political entity by Google.

It’s always cheaper and more effective to work with specialists in the field than trying to do this part by yourself unless you absolutely know your stuff inside out. To help you understand more, you can read some of our articles here (link to knowledge hub) or get in touch to speak to our experts (link to contact page.)

Act on time

Timing is everything. Ideally, we start planning for Ramadan with our Muslim charity clients at least 4 months in advance. So, if you’ve just started thinking about Ramadan, you’ll want to get the ball rolling straight away.

Book a call with us today, and we’ll give you exclusive access to our Ramadan 2023 Insights Report. This includes:

Be realistic

Going from zero to hero is not the best strategy. The work you do throughout the year to engage audiences and build credibility is what will support your results in Ramadan. And each year you can hope to build on these results. Whereas setting up a big budget without having done the groundwork is an easy way of squandering your donor’s money.

And remember, much of the work involved in running a Ramadan campaign can be done without too much technical knowledge. It’s best to try to build capacity internally by doing as much of the work as possible. But this isn’t true when it comes to handling the digital campaign elements.

Because of our expertise, our AI software and our reach in the Muslim community, we buck the trend and achieve higher-than-average growth rates for our clients every Ramadan. We can help do the same for you.

Download your free Ramadan guide

To help plan your Ramadan 2024 campaign effectively, we have a Ramadan Guide which you can download for free. Included in the guide are:

• Key milestones you should be looking to work towards for next Ramadan.
• A checklist of assets needed depending on the scale of the campaign and channels you wish to capitalise on.
• A schedule for pushing out content during key periods – i.e., pre-Ramadan, first 10 days, second 10 days and last 10 days.

Download your free Ramadan 2024 planning guide